Feeling Good is the Best High

The best reason for being in good health is to feel good -- and not just not to feel bad, which is often the way it is promoted.  In that manner, it is an achievement and accomplishment rather than an avoidance.  Good health, is the capacity to feel good -- and not merely in order not to feel worse.

That difference in outlook and approach, is the difference between being-motivation from deficiency-motivation -- which is the self-actualization Maslow spoke of in the previous century, when he noted that their was no psychology for positive development, but only the psychology for dysfunction, deficiency and inadequacy -- as though that was the "normal," and expected.

He further noted that what we knew of human history and culture, was largely if not exclusively, the work of maladjusted people -- because those were the people who wrote, played music, became "entertainers" -- driven as they were, to be "liked," and approved of because that's what they lacked in their lives -- and thus, drove them to extraordinary lengths for.

To get to that level, they frequently resorted to alcohol, drugs and other abuses to transcend the reality of their actualities, and were applauded by those who also shared and experienced those same motivations and neediness.  Even cultural institutions were driven by those same desires to be "other than what one is" -- rejecting the person one is, in favor of those they should become -- as though that made perfectly good sense, and ennobled one, rather than it truly did, diminish and reject all one actually is -- and understood oneself to be.

In fact, the person one is, was never thought to be a worthy subject of study -- although the wise persons of every time and culture -- had pointed out that the greatest attainment achieved, was simply in knowing oneself -- rather than the ideal they wished to become.  Frequently if not always, it led to mistaking the person one wished to become -- for the person one is, and is apparent to everyone else.  And so we call such people "delusional," because they cannot acknowledge and live in the reality that most people do.

That of course, is the basis for most mental illness -- living in a reality shared by no one else.  In that reality, they can attain unparalleled and unachievable greatness because that opinion need not be correlated and corroborated to any other reality agreed on by any other.  Sometimes that achievement can be obtained at the sacrifice of everything else -- as mass murderers think to do in going out that way.  That is their moment of glory and fame -- but whether anybody else thinks that a worthy achievement, dumbfounds everyone else -- except those similarly deluded.

Hopefully, one doesn't have to be "out of control," in order to experience one's own immense power.  That transcendental moment can be experienced  in all that one does -- when one puts their whole being into it.  That is the integration of mind and body -- rather than the splintering of it.  That is achieved in all the little things one does -- and not just the one big thing one hopes will redeem them from the thoughtlessness of everything else they have done.

That is the goodness one feels in being totally healthy -- and one's being, is one's doing, and not the fragmentation into alternate realities.  That is a very real possibility in this time and age.  People don't have to be motivated by deficiencies and dysfunctions -- to attain their greatest health and well-being.  That can be achieved by just the proper understanding that such a thing is possible -- and not a futile quest for only the vain and inordinately lucky.  It is in fact, the meaning and purpose of every life -- as the "new normal" that is entirely possible for everyone.

It is not the way we were -- but much better.